Toomey back on top in Pennsylvania

New polling data indicates that Pennsylvania Republican Senate hopeful Pat Toomey has regained the lead he held for months, thanks largely to continued strength among independent voters.

After Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak closed the gap recently to take a narrow lead in the competitive race, Toomey surged back ahead this week, according to the state’s two largest polling institutes. A Franklin & Marshall College survey released Wednesday morning showed Toomey leading by 7 percentage points among likely voters, 43 percent to 36 percent.

Story Continued Below

That finding substantiated movement in the Muhlenberg College daily tracking poll, which swung 11 points in the span of a week — from a 3-point edge for Sestak last Wednesday to an 8-point lead for Toomey on Tuesday. That advantage leveled out to 5 points in the tracking poll Wednesday.

By all accounts, the race remains close as the candidates enter a homestretch packed with furious retail campaigning. A Reuters poll earlier in the week showed the race tied, with each candidate winning 46 percent of likely voters.

But taken together, the latest polling data seemed to signal that Sestak's surge was in large part due to solidified support among his own party, and that Toomey was still performing well with the critical bloc of independent voters.

“There was no sudden movement in the polls benefiting Sestak,” Toomey pollster Jon Lerner wrote earlier in the week, in a memo obtained by POLITICO. “Rather it was the common and expected phenomenon of strong partisan Democrats moving back to their party’s candidate.”